SOUTH AFRICAN FINANCES.

Kaikoura Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 65, 21 August 1944, Page 4

SOUTH AFRICAN FINANCES.

EXCESS PROFITS DUTY. Replying in the Budget debate in the House of Assembly, the Hon. J. H. Hofmeyer, South African Minister of Finance, answered a criticism that the excess profits duty, which produced £13,500,000 in the financial and said the public had frightened by it into transferring theii money into shares of another nature. In 1941, 967 companies had been registered in South Africa, in 1942 the number was 969, and in 1943, 1405 had been registered. Capital invested in companies in 1941 was £9,100,000, while in 1943 it had risen to £18,200,000. One critic had said that posterity would pay £14,000,000 yearly interest on South African national debt, but the distribution of this would be: To the general public- £7,000,000, to finance companies £4,500,000, and to private banks £2,400,000. The war had brought two great changes in the public debt of South Africa. Overseas borrowings had largely been repatriated and the internal d£bt had never before been so widly distributed. It was mainly the small man who was the shareholder in the State, and who would draw inter est on the public debt.

Speaking of the cost of living in South Africa, Mr Hofmeyr said that the cost of living rose by 67 points in 1941, by 44 points in 1942, and by 16 in 1943. It was true that South Africa had been less successful than some countries in controlling the cost of livbut this was due to reasons over which the State had no control. There had been, for example, the drought of y 940-41, while the fact that South Africa did not have a homogeneous population had made the introduction of a comprehensive rationing system inypossible.